Many of the minor wounds have already scabbed over, and your stitches have been removed everywhere. Yesterday your stitches in your head came out, the bandage on now is just for the light bleeding that comes with suture removal. I can remove it now.”
I was still as the doctor carefully removed the bandage around my skull. When he was finished, I lifted my hand to my temple and gasped as I gently ran my fingertips along a lengthy, jagged scabbed line that reached back to behind my ear. I realised instantly that half of my hair was shaved down to a buzz cut around the area of the wound. The rest of my hair was shorter too, cut up to my shoulders.
“Does it look really bad?”
I heard in my own voice that I was going to cry.
“No,” the doctor answered. “You will think it looks awful though.”
His honesty brought on a bubble of light laughter, which fought away my impending tears.
“I can get a mirror if you’d—”
“No,” I interrupted. “I think I need more time before I can look at it.”
I didn’t think I’d ever be ready; what my fingers felt scared me. The closed wound felt huge to touch. I could only imagine how it would look.
“That’s okay,” he assured me. “Remind yourself that everything in your body is healing and will look bad before it gets better. Things could have been so much worse, so try to remember that when you think of all of the things that are wrong right now. The majority of the damage to your body is only surface scrapes; what has you in the ICU is your brain injury.”
I had a fucking brain injury.
I nodded, slowly. “I wish I could remember what happened to me, but I just can’t. Is that normal? To have no memory at all?”
“It’s very normal,” he assured me. “Amnesia is a common occurrence when it comes to head injuries. You might remember what happened in an hour, in a week or not at all. We can never tell, it’s completely up to your body.”
I digested that information. I wanted to remember what had happened to me; the blank spot in my memory wasn’t something I liked. It made me feel vulnerable. I tried not to worry about my memory not returning, as the possibility of that truly terrified me.
“Your brain has been through a lot, Noah. It’s your body’s core and it needs its rest, so don’t stress about things that may or may not happen, okay?”
Again, I nodded.
“I need to see my family and my boyfriend,” I urged. “What time is it? Is it too late to call them?”
“It’s just after midnight, and the nurse has already informed them that you have regained consciousness. I imagine they will be barrelling down the motorway to get to you.”
I breathed a small laugh. “I imagine that too.” I rested my head back. “I woke up earlier, I’m not sure when, but I fell asleep before I could press the Call button. I’m so tired.”
“Again,” the doctor said, “that is normal. Each time you wake up, you will stay awake for longer and longer periods.”
That calmed me down a little. I relaxed back into my bed and looked at the small plasma television on the wall facing me. I asked the doctor to turn it on and he granted my wish within seconds.
“Is the news okay or do you prefer something else?”
“It’s fine,” I said. “I just want it for the noise right now. I don’t like the silence.”
As soon as the words left my mouth, I frowned. Since when did I not like silence? I had always enjoyed the peace and quiet that it brought, but now the very thought of silence made a shiver of fear run the length of my spine and I had no idea why.
It wasn’t a pleasant feeling.
I focused on the news and watched it for a few minutes until Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, appeared on screen. He was doing a press conference of some kind outside of Number 10, and it went on for ages but I couldn’t make sense of it. I looked at the doctor, who was now standing over by the window, writing on my chart.
“The mayor is getting his money’s worth today,” I joked. “I’ve never seen him talk so much.”
Doctor Abara looked at the screen on the wall, then back to me with raised eyebrows and said, “He’s not the mayor any more – he’s the